So What Got Me Mining?

Everyone has a story to tell, everyone has a reason that they got interested or got curious about mining crypto-currencies. For some people it’s the concept, that coins are somehow immune to government regulation and allow for un-monitored transactions. For some people, it’s the whole technology challenge. For others, it’s all about the money. I sort of fall into the last two categories, in about equal parts.

I have been watching the whole deal since it started. Bitcoin was, at it’s inception, essentially a bit of a scam. There was literally no real value to the stuff, and there was no real use for it. At the beginning it was all about the technology. The difficulty to mine coins was low enough that you could do it at home with a basic computer, and gather up coins. They were pretty much worthless, which meant mining them was at a loss. Those people who played with it back then and held onto the coins until today are rich, at least in theory. As I write this bitcoins are worth more than $10,000 USD, which is incredibly consider than only a few years ago, they were worth pennies.

Lending credance to the concept of a scam, the price of Bitcoin went up and down like a yo-yo. Speculators and fraudsters bought and sold the coins and drove the price around like a bumper car. There were high peaks in the hundreds (and even over 1000) but the short sellers always took the wind out of the sails and pushed it down. Various other currencies, like Doge Coin and whatnot clouded the market even further and created more of the impression of a scam rather than something serious.

Most people don’t understand the underlying power of the blockchain. I don’t think I grok it all. But without a doubt this is a completely different way of looking at things, and potentially a different way for commerce to happen. I don’t know – but I do know I want in. So, I mine.

At least I want to. Next post I start telling you about the tribulations of getting set up to mine!